With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Bhutto Allegation Bin Laden Had Been Murdered

Jenna Orkin

In an interview November 2, 2007 with Sir David Frost, Benazir Bhutto mentioned in passing "Omar Sheikh" who, she said, had murdered Osama Bin Laden.

The camera remained fixed on the assassinee to be, so Frost's reaction is forever lost to enquiring minds, but he did not follow up with any questions concerning this eyebrow-raising bombshell.

The comment comes off as a possible slip of the tongue but even as such, provokes questions. Where exactly was the slip? On the words "Omar Sheikh," "Osama Bin Laden" or "murdered?"

A corollary question arises about whether the Omar Sheikh (a common name) to whom Bhutto was referring was the ISI associate who was convicted in 2002 of murdering Daniel Pearl. This Omar Sheikh, according to the Times of India, also wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before the 9/11 attacks.

Of course, Bhutto's not around to clarify but a trip to her party's website yielded a reference dated November 8, after the Frost interview, which refutes her statement:

"The United States alone has given the Musharraf government more than $10 billion in aid since 2001. We do not know exactly where or how this money has been spent, but it is clear that it has not brought about the defeat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, nor succeeded in capturing Osama bin Laden, nor has it broken the opium trade."

A remarkable aspect of the interview is the fact that apart from Al Jazeera, no mainstream press have investigated its surely newsworthy allegation. This, of course, is not surprising in the United States, but the Asian and other Middle Eastern presses might have been expected to show some curiosity.

The Pakistan People's Party website did not provide contact information beyond an email address. This blog emailled an enquiry Saturday but has not received a response. According to my experience, Saturday and Sunday are work days in Muslim countries.

She said the comment in passing, matter-of-fact like... As if everybody knew.

I've pretty much known for quite some time that Bin Laden has been dead. The videos put out that are purportedly him don't even look like him. So he was either dead or a patsy this whole time… or both.

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis

Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.

The increase – from 26.5 million in 2007 – is due partly to recent efforts to increase public awareness of the programme and also a switch from paper coupons to electronic debit cards. But above all it is the pressures being exerted on ordinary Americans by an economy that is suddenly beset by troubles. Housing foreclosures, accelerating jobs losses and fast-rising prices all add to the squeeze.

Michigan has been in its own mini-recession for years as its collapsing industrial base, particularly in the car industry, has cast more and more out of work. Now, one in eight residents of the state is on food stamps, double the level in 2000. "We have seen a dramatic increase in recent years, but we have also seen it climbing more in recent months," Maureen Sorbet, a spokeswoman for Michigan's programme, said. "It's been increasing steadily. Without the programme, some families and kids would be going without."

The US Department of Agriculture says the cost of feeding a low-income family of four has risen 6 per cent in 12 months. "The amount of food stamps per household hasn't gone up with the food costs," says Dayna Ballantyne, who runs a food bank in Des Moines, Iowa. "Our clients are finding they aren't able to purchase food like they used to."

And the next monthly job numbers, to be released this Friday, are likely to show 50,000 more jobs were lost nationwide in March, and the unemployment rate is up to perhaps 5 per cent.

I'd say there's a 99% probability that UBL is dead, and has been for some years. We have no reliable information at all that he's living. Probably, like Saddam Hussein he served his purpose and was murdered, or died of some ailment. But he's a convenient bogeyman, so he's "kept alive" by those who stand to profit from the UBL mythology.

The UBL videos are not to be trusted, either way. Even if the guy in the video looks and sounds like UBL, it's easy to use rubber masks and audio processing to fake someone. And if the CIA pronounces the video authentic, the populace will lap it up, no matter how unconvincing it is to a person with a brain.

On another subject, fuel taxes in Japan expired at the end of March, and gasoline prices plummeted by about the equivalent of $1/gallon. People are going nuts, topping off their gas tanks. Automakers are hoping this will revive sales of full-size cars. Meanwhile, the government is trying to get the tax reinstated ASAP. And quite predictably, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it is shelving about 90% of road construction and maintenance projects! Construction companies are already reeling from the lack of work (in my state, even some large, well-established contractors have gone belly-up), so unless the taxes and road projects are quickly reinstated, there could be an unprecedented wave of bankruptcies, which would only aggravate the already stagnating economic situation.

Has anyone found a news website similar to FTW in its analysis and accuacy of prediction? I've been reading several blogs such as ranprieur.com, carolynbaker.net, and this blog. However, none of them fill the void that FTW occupied. Am I on my own? Thanks for your suggestions.

Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitablehttp://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19826501.500-the-demise-of-civilisation-may-be-inevitable.htmlYou can find the entire article reposted here:http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?s=bf8e5183c5dbbaa987081691b11953c1&showtopic=72914&st=45&p=1049710entry1049710

Yet another airline bites the dust.http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/04/04/airlines.bankruptcy/index.html

BTW, there is a butter shortage here in Japan. Some supermarkets just don't have any. To this, people will say, "We'll eat margarine instead," or "We can do without butter." But it's only a matter of time before the shortages spread to other foods. Japan is now about the only Asian country that isn't affected by rice shortages.

I also just read Mike's recent post on the website. I am happy to hear of how well he is doing, and the wise choices he has made. He has certainly done his part in world events, and in providing the 'map' to follow. Now is the time to attend to his own inner map. I think sometimes people make too much of the choice of where to live to 'survive' Peak Oil. The right place to live is where your heart is and no other. None of us will live forever. So if we follow the intangible promptings of the heart we will be in the right place. Having a dog (or cat) helps too!

This is quite obvious by the matter of fact way she said it. It wasn't a newsworthy announcement, merely a reference that was stating something well known and uncontroversial to her. Jumping on this is not particularly helpful. It was just a mistaken name (although one that people may find hard to believe, mistaking Daniel Pearl for OBL.) I see nothing there worth pursuing.